


The Five Times Aubrey Posen Was Mortified to See Chloe Beale Naked

by heroinehigh



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:51:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroinehigh/pseuds/heroinehigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the one time—or maybe two or three times—she won’t admit that she wasn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Times Aubrey Posen Was Mortified to See Chloe Beale Naked

**Author's Note:**

> Pitch Perfect does not belong to me, and all that legalese. I just had to do one of these things. Blame Chloe. She’s “really confident about all this.” Rated M to stay on the safe side of the Posen family’s sensibilities.

**1.**

The first time Aubrey Posen sees Chloe Beale naked, she is on her way to her 9:00AM class and her roommate is running late for her 8:00AM one. The blonde is just about to turn the knob of their dorm room door when it flies open and the redhead races in, wearing nothing but an open bathrobe. She’s come running from the showers down the hall.

“’Scuse me, Aubrey!” Chloe yells as she flings open her closet and rummages through what Aubrey has previously described as a pile reminiscent of a flea market dump. “I forgot my clothes because I’m late for class!”

And just like that, Chloe drops her robe then begins hopping around on one leg, putting on underwear.

Aubrey is mortified. Chloe—exhaustingly bubbly, potentially hippie, persistently friendly—has been her roommate for barely three weeks. Aubrey and her female cousins never even bathed or dressed together when they were kids, even after swimming trips. None of the other girls on her high school varsity teams were ever this _indecent_ in the locker room. Aubrey doesn’t even go to the communal showers in _only_ a bathrobe. (For that matter, Aubrey doesn’t “forget her clothes because she is late for class”—what kind of an explanation is that?— because she is _never_ late for class.)

“Oh, Aubrey, could you hand me that please?” Chloe stops pulling up a pants leg long enough to indicate where and what that is: a bra, draped over her desk chair. Aubrey has been trying to ignore that all morning. She is trying to ignore Chloe’s bra-less-ness now.

“Aubrey? Shit.” Chloe accidentally drops the shirt she has just pulled out. “Please? God, I am so _dead_ , this is the third time I’ll show up past 8:30— _”_

How did she ever end up with such an insufferably disorganized, utterly shameless roommate?

Aubrey tears her eyes from where she’s had them trained on the opposite wall. “You can get it yourself, Chloe.” She can imagine that the redhead might actually need an explanation as to why. There are, in fact, a multitude of reasons—Aubrey can list them—but instead she says, “I’m late for class.”

She strides out the door half-expecting Chloe to call out “No, _I_ am!”

By the end of the day, word has gotten around about a ginger streaker in the freshman dorms. Aubrey is aghast that even if there could be any number of ginger streakers on campus, a lot of those in their common 3:00PM World History class seem to have an idea of who it is. (Technically, Chloe wasn’t even streaking in the dorms—just, _oh God_ , their room.) She is even more aghast at the side comments and snickering. From the little she lets herself hear, she gathers Chloe had gotten just a bit too drunk at the freshman orientation party a few weeks back.

It doesn’t get better when Chloe walks into the lecture hall, thankfully fully clothed _and_ at 2:57PM, to a string of catcalls and hoots. Aubrey thought she would still be a bit pissed or flustered upon seeing Chloe, but now, sensing the other girl’s discomfort from across the room, she suddenly feels embarrassed _for_ her roommate, no longer because of her.

Not to mention a bit sorry, as well as sorry for her own behavior earlier.

When a couple of douchebags pipe up about how Chloe could run disrobing or disrobed to their room anytime _too_ , Aubrey is quite a bit more than indignant. If there’s one thing she disapproves of more than women who can’t seem to respect themselves, it is men who do not even try to respect them.

She shoots up from her seat, straight and taut as a knife, and hurls at them the first of many lashing insults her year would remember her for. Even Chloe gapes at her in surprise.

Aubrey clears the seat next to her of books and waves at the redhead to come over. Nobody cracks any more jokes when she scoots down.

“I was just really in a hurry this morning,” Chloe mumbles, not meeting Aubrey’s eyes. “I just ran out of the shower. I didn’t think—I’m really sorry, Aubrey… about the bra thing, everything.”

That evening, Aubrey demands that Chloe give her a copy of her schedule and synchronizes their alarm clocks. She announces that it will be her mission to ensure Chloe will never have to rush to class again. She also holds Chloe’s cellphone and iPod hostage until Chloe makes her closet more orderly and lays out her clothes for the next day where she will not miss them.

“You’re worse than my mother,” Chloe mutters, more than once, as she refolds the contents of her wardrobe. Yet amusement and gratitude are laced into her tone. She adds: “Probably because you’re a motherfucker.”

For a moment, Chloe is afraid she’s ruined it, totally ruined it, and whatever hope for friendship she’d had with her bossy roommate has gone with another one of her boo-boos with boundaries. It shows in her face, now bright red as her hair, as it should have been that morning, when, as far as Aubrey is concerned, Chloe was the biggest motherfucker of them all.

Then, suddenly, one of her own bras hits her face. Chloe has barely sputtered out a “Wh-at?!?” when she sees Aubrey picking up more of her clothes off the floor, smirking.

“Oh, yes, I am, Chloe Beale,” she states with a curt nod and the slightest hint of a smile. Aubrey can barely contain it, not with that mortified look now on the redhead’s face. “And you better get used to it. Because I am.” For the first time since she’s arrived at Barden, she laughs. “I definitely _am_.”

(They will laugh again about this evening, later on, when they realize they became friends because Aubrey was so desperate to never have to see Chloe naked again and Chloe called her a fucker because of it.)

 

**2.**

The second time Aubrey sees Chloe naked, she is too mortified for herself to even bother that much about Chloe (which is not to say Chloe’s nakedness doesn’t bother her). Because this time, Aubrey’s getting prodded to get naked, too.

It’s the summer break before sophomore year, and the Barden Bellas have made history by advancing to the ICCA semi-finals. One of the graduating seniors has brought the team to her family’s beach house to celebrate. Every single one of the eleven girls with bikini-ready bodies is at least tipsy. Every single one of them—from Katie, the outgoing captain who gave Aubrey her first-ever solo, to Alice, a shoo-in to be eventual captain who just wants to give Aubrey a miserable life—has it in her head to go skinny-dipping.

Every single one of them, that is, except Aubrey. After all, Posens are classy and they do _not_ commemorate victories by tearing off their clothes. Besides, as her father has always said, victories are collected, not celebrated. Celebrations are only for those who don’t expect themselves to win again.

Of course, she has trouble explaining all this to both Katie and Alice. Along with her, they are the only girls left dressed and standing at the edge of the ocean. The rest are already squealing, thrashing, and fooling around farther from shore, the water lapping up to their chests. One of the other seniors is trying to herd them in for a game. Out of the corner of her eye, Aubrey sees Chloe edging nearer her, apparently planning a sneak attack.

“Aubrey, come on!” Katie says. “No one else is around. We’re not going to get in trouble. Live a little.”

“Are you really this boring, Posen?” Alice interjects, eyeing Aubrey’s hoodie and track shorts in disgust. “This better not be a sign of how you’re going to _not_ be one with the Bellas next year.”

“N-no!” Aubrey stammers. She is getting more and more flustered—Alice has that effect on her—and she can feel her stomach already twisting into knots. It doesn’t help that Chloe keeps swimming into her line of sight, red-orange hair slick and glimmering against pale, bare skin. “I _am_ one with the Bellas! It’s just—“

“You’re too scared? Or too flabby now to show your junk?”

“—just that my father always says—“

_That it’s rude to stare at people, especially when they’re butt-naked_ , a voice in her head intones. Aubrey snaps her attention back to Alice.

Who finishes the sentence for her. “That it’s never in your best interest to keep Aubrey Posen around. I’m sure that’s what he _always_ says.” The black-haired girl then nudges Katie towards the water. “Have fun being a killjoy, Posen.”

At that, Aubrey sighs and treks back to the beach house.

That’s where a still-dripping, barely-covered, alcohol-enabled Chloe finds her some fifteen minutes later, leaning against the kitchen island, pouring tequila into a coffee cup because she could find no other glass.

After a flurry of sharp orders from the blonde to get back to the beach, and pout-filled melodramatics from the redhead that she would not do so, Chloe whines out what cuts Aubrey off once and for good.    

“I’m not going back out there! We’re supposed to be celebrating the Bellas and I’m not doing that without you! I joined the Bellas _with_ you.”

Aubrey wants to say that at this point, Chloe would likely be kicked off the Bellas with her, too.

“And I don’t care about Alice!” Chloe grabs Aubrey’s wrist, as if reading her thoughts.

“You shouldn’t, too,” she presses. She leans towards Aubrey, squeezing her hand; in the sudden motion, part of the blouse draped around her shoulders slips off. “You’re better than her, that’s why she hates you so much. You’ll be a better captain, eventually. _Then_ you’ll make your father proud.”

Aubrey should be used to this by now: the sudden gestures, tactile and not, by which the other girl seems to both deliberately and naturally ease past her boundaries. But Aubrey handles emotional vulnerability just as well as physical intimacy, so she pushes Chloe away—literally.

“I’m sorry,” she says almost immediately. “I… I just don’t like skinny-dipping.” It’s a poor save.

Chloe gives her a look, measuring and long.

“No, you don’t,” she finally says. Her blue eyes are hazy, but Aubrey isn’t convinced that her thoughts that moment are, too. “You can’t stand there and tell me you don’t like running naked into an ocean with a bunch of super-hot girls! I’ve _seen_ you.”

“Seen me?”

“I’ve seen you!” The redhead exclaims, bolting from where she’s been leaning on the counter. “You totally check out hot women too! And besides, how can you _not_ go skinny-dipping? You, like, totes have the hottest bikini-ready body! But you keep all that”—she wags her finger at the blonde’s torso—“under all that.”

_“Chloe!”_ Aubrey shrieks. _Drunk_ , she reminds herself. _Chloe is drunk_.

“You totes do!”

Aubrey is beside herself. “You’ve never even seen me in a swim—“

“We’re roommates, dum-dum. You change clothes.”

_“Aca-scuse me? You peek—“_

“Aca-scuse _you_ ,” Chloe jabs a finger at Aubrey’s chest. “You peeked that day I ran into our room after my shower. You were peeking earlier while I was in the water. Don’t think I don’t see you trying _not_ to look! Perv!”

In the resulting silence, Chloe lifts her chin self-righteously. She lets out a “Hah!” of triumph, raises her arms, and does a little victory jiggle. Her blouse falls off completely.

Aubrey is _definitely_ mortified.

 

**3.**

The third time Aubrey sees Chloe naked, she doesn’t exactly _see_ Chloe naked, but she sees _why_ Chloe is, and it mortifies her just the same.

Admittedly, Aubrey returns to their shared apartment earlier than she usually does on Thursdays. But junior year is well underway, papers and tests are piling up, Alice is turning into an even crueler slave-driver, grad program invitations are dropping in, and her father is on her case for not yet selecting a law school. Aubrey skips her workout after night class, just wanting to curl up in bed, sleep in peace, and hopefully wake up with a settled stomach.

Which, she tells herself for a while afterwards, is why what happens at home upsets her so much.

She opens the door and sees Chloe’s bare legs propped up on top of the couch. “Hey, Chlo,” she calls out in the warm tone she reserves for her best friend, even though she also feels like hitting Chloe (or her legs) for being able to be so relaxed.

“He-e-ey! Aubrey!”

At the strangled tone, Aubrey looks up from where she’s placing her keys on the counter. That’s when she sees that Chloe is only partially wrapped in a blanket.

“Ch…l…o…e…” she begins, but it’s too late. She’s already seen the redhead’s bare shoulders and collarbones, more than a hint of her cleavage, her heavy-lidded eyes, flushed cheeks, tousled hair.

Then, a guy Aubrey has never seen in her life steps out of their bathroom.

In the same breath with which Aubrey thanks pantheons of aca-gods that he is wearing boxers, she also prays she will soon forget the nail marks on his stomach.

“Bree…” Chloe croaks. “This is Tom. If… If you just give us a minute…”

Aubrey gives them four hours.

She knows Tom must have left their apartment only minutes after she fled it, but she doesn’t return. She loiters in the library until the last possible second, then holes up in a deli.

She’s just giving Chloe some privacy, she tells herself, even if nine texts and six missed calls suggest that might not be what Chloe is after.

Aubrey doesn’t know why she’s this bothered by walking in on her best friend and some guy she’s been dating (if this Tom is the Tom Chloe’s mentioned before) _after_ they had sex. It was not an impossible thing to happen in college—hell, in life. It was also partly her fault; she didn’t tell Chloe she was coming home earlier than planned.

Besides, she reminds herself, if her history of spotting Chloe in various states of undress is any indication, Chloe is no nun. And what did Chloe expect her to think, on those nights she didn’t come home and gave Aubrey no explanations in the morning? It’s not as if Aubrey expects Chloe to kiss and tell. (Aubrey wouldn’t. Aubrey _didn’t._ ) But, for serious, it’s not as if she hasn’t noticed—

So what is her problem now?

_Because all those guys were never in your dorm room or apartment_ , Aubrey thinks. ( _Neither were those girls_ —Aubrey’s stomach churns at this additional thought. _My God, Chloe, you and boundaries._ ) _This time, you feel your space has been invaded. Chloe’s never brought anyone home before._

Not that it is actually Chloe’s home, or hers. Not to mention _theirs_.

“I’m sorry, Bree,” Chloe says later, way past midnight. She has waited for her to come back, lounging on Aubrey’s bed and not on any other controversial piece of furniture. “I promise I’ll clean the couch. I’ll even _buy_ a new one.”

“You don’t have to, Chloe. Just—just warn me next time, please, if you can manage.” Of course. Of course Aubrey is going to make this about scheduling and protocol, as she organizes stuff around her room and avoids Chloe’s contrite gaze. For some reason, she is more unable to look at her now, fully dressed in pajamas, than when she was just covered by a blanket.

“I’m so sorry. We were going to go out, but he came by here, and it just happened…”

“Please don’t tell me how it happened.”

She meant that to come out lighter than it did. Chloe swallows, tears springing to her eyes.

Aubrey sighs. Maybe this Tom really matters to Chloe, she thinks. Maybe, this time around, Chloe really matters to whoever she’s sleeping with.

Aubrey tries not to add to that thought.

“Chlo, _I’m_ sorry. Forget about the couch. Just… well…” She sits down next to Chloe and takes her hand. “So... Tell me about Tom.”

A smile so quickly forms on Chloe’s face that she almost wants to drown in a pool of her own vomit. Did that guy really make her best friend so happy? Or was Chloe also just that relieved that she wasn’t (that) mad after all?

The only things Aubrey takes away from Chloe’s story are that Tom is a baseball player; Tom is a really sweet guy and a shoulder to cry on; Tom does not mind that Chloe is also into girls; and Tom has always wanted to meet her, because “I always tell him that you’re amazing, Bree!”

When Chloe drifts off to sleep in mid-story later, her head is nonchalantly tucked into the crook of Aubrey’s neck, her hand casually dropped across her lap. As Aubrey slides Chloe off her and towards the other side of the bed, she tries hard to ignore a voice in her head.

It’s whispering: _So. Tell me about Chloe._

 

**4.**

The fourth time Aubrey can be said to have seen Chloe naked isn’t like the other times.

In fact, she can’t even say if she’s seeing the Chloe she knows, or if this Chloe’s being in the buff actually qualifies as _nakedness_. (Though, granted the three other times she’s seen Chloe unclothed, how else, really, can she see Chloe naked? Aubrey doesn’t want to answer that question.) What she does know is that she is seeing Chloe— _a_ Chloe—and it’s part of _the_ Chloe she wants to keep getting to know for the rest of her life.

It’s also a Chloe that did not yet have an Aubrey in hers.

(What would it have been like—what could it still be like—if they did not have each other? She doesn’t want to answer that, either.)

Aubrey is at the Beales’ for the post-Christmas holidays, after opting out of the Posens’ New Year’s trip to Colorado. Chloe’s parents and siblings have been more than welcoming, and in a span of three days, Aubrey has come to feel more at home in their household than she ever has in nearly twenty years in her own.

There has been an endless stream of food, baked goodies, board games, and movie marathons, as well as a snowball fight and the promise of sledding in the coming days. (At least, it’s a “promise” to Chloe; to Aubrey it feels more like a threat. She’d much rather go skiing—but that would mean having gone with her family to Aspen.) This night, she and the five Beales have fallen in around the fireplace, teasing Chloe by showing their guest photo albums of her childhood. Chloe makes a show of being mortified by the idea, until she isn’t.

There is the newly born Chloe wailing in her mother’s arms, cheeks as bright red as her then-short, wavy locks (“You won’t believe the high notes I hit right out of the womb, Bree,” Chloe quips). There is a slightly bigger baby Chloe, clad only in diapers, pounding her palm on a pillow designed like a piano.

There, too, is toddler Chloe, running naked across the front lawn, having broken free from a plastic pool in the background. Also in the picture is Chloe’s mom, hurrying after her runaway child, clutching a towel. (“Yes, _yes_ , Bree, I know what you’re going to say about my ‘inexcusable immodesty,’” Chloe says with a wink when Aubrey looks up from that photo and gives her a colossal smirk. That earns them quizzical looks from Chloe’s parents—questioning glances that Mr. and Mrs. Beale turn to shoot at each other when, at a photo of a four-year-old Chloe cavorting topless at the edge of a lake, bikini top in hand, Aubrey bursts out laughing and Chloe, with a yelp, smothers her laughter with a pillow.)

“Is there something you’re not telling us, Aubrey?” Mr. Beale says after Aubrey has closed the last album. “Is my daughter now posing nude for magazines, and that’s why you two are giggling conspiratorially about her baby pictures _as if her mother and I didn’t know_ she has always shown signs of taking that career path?”

_“Dad!”_ Chloe flies across the room to swat her father, who is now chuckling himself. “Bree, don’t listen to him, he’ll just poison your mind! He thinks I’m such a degenerate daughter!”

“Mr. Beale, it is my responsibility to inform you that _she truly is_ ,” Aubrey replies, and that sends Chloe all the way back across the room to tackle her onto the couch, yelling “TRAITOR!”

Nothing of the sort would ever happen in her home, Aubrey knows. (Not that _she_ has naked kiddie pictures; that was improper, even then—not that she has that many candid family pictures in the first place.) Fully participating in Chloe and her dad’s inside joke only tightens the warm knot that’s been growing in her chest and throat all day. It’s a bit nice, and it also isn’t. Fitting in with the Beales gives her a chance to feel what she never has, yet it also shows her just what that is. Back home, _degenerate daughter_ wouldn’t have been said in jest.

When they go to sleep that night, with Aubrey’s guest cot pushed next to Chloe’s bed, it doesn’t feel like all the other times Chloe has curled up next to her, either. It’s definitely not like the times Chloe unceremoniously flopped down on her in a drunken stupor, nor when she snuggled up to her after a nasty little break-up. Neither is it like when Chloe fell asleep with Aubrey in her arms after Aubrey had cried her heart out for the first time about her family.

“Love you, Bree,” Chloe mumbles in the dark, like she always does.

“I love you,” Aubrey murmurs back, perhaps too many beats later than usual.

Even saying that doesn’t feel like it has all the other times.

Probably because this time, Aubrey didn’t mean it to.

 

**5.**

By the fifth time Aubrey has to deal with Chloe being shamelessly naked _again_ , she has given up denying that she has also actually _been_ thinking of Chloe naked. And by thinking, she means—well, it doesn’t matter what she means. What matters is that she can no longer _not_ think of Chloe naked because she _has_ seen Chloe naked, her subconscious won’t let her forget it, and by God and all the aca-gods. Aubrey. Hates It.

She hates that her roommate once had to run through their dorm hall practically in the nude, then strip and dress right in front of her. She hates that her one true teammate on the Bellas had to prove her being so by literally rising and standing by her side ( _while practically naked_ ) when she refused to join the sisterhood of singing skinny-dippers.

She hates that she had to see her best friend nearly naked with an equally nearly naked guy just for her to realize that it isn’t prudishness—a word Chloe so often tosses against her—that makes her so uncomfortable with the redhead’s ease with baring skin.

Aubrey hates Chloe’s lack of boundaries because it throws that boundary of boundaries right back at her face, straight through to her heart, and down to her gut.

Among all the things she hates that have led to this realization, right at the start of senior year, when the world seems to hate Aubrey as much as she hates it, she hates _this_ the most.

But for all the _hatred_ boiling inside her, Aubrey discovers she does not know the meaning of loathinguntil she meets Beca Mitchell. Or, rather, until _Chloe_ meets Beca Mitchell—and meets her _again_ , in the showers, and comes home a blabbering whirlwind of excitement and adulation. She tumbles over word upon word, leaving Aubrey open-mouthed in horror at her latest escapade. Even Tom shrugs in helplessness as he shuffles out of their apartment, the topmost buttons of his shirt still undone.

“Chloe, _for serious_ , what is _wrong_ with you?”

“Her _voice_ , Bree, you should have heard it!”

“You can’t just barge into other people’s showers!”

“She sings _so well_ , Bree—“

“I thought we were over this! Respecting other people’s boundaries! Respecting _yourself_!”

“It’s not like I ran through the halls again, Bree, and she didn’t run away, either! She stayed, and _sang_ —“

_“—naked—”_

“Well, Bree, duh, we were in the showers, what did you expect? Listen to her. Just _listen_ to her!”

And Aubrey does, if only for Chloe. (Really: _only_ for Chloe.) Despite the ever-growing, ever-sickening ire, she listens to the freshman. Through auditions, rehearsals, and (discouraged!) impromptu jam sessions, Aubrey listens until she can no longer bear to hear any more of Beca’s light, effortless voice, whether in song or speech. Either way, it only leads her to hearing Chloe gush over the alt-girl more.

_Just screw the fuck out of her already and leave me alone_ , Aubrey wants to snap. Then realizes why she doesn’t want to.

Towards the end of the year, the only person Aubrey could hate more is herself.

By the end of it, she’s also the one who gets stripped stark naked to her very core—by Chloe, no less, because of Beca, in the middle of an auditorium, and in front of every Bella. Sure, the stripping is metaphorical, more humbling than mortifying, but it is not something Aubrey will ever forget.

There are a lot of things about that year she never will.

Winning the ICCAs. Actually becoming better than Alice. Making lifelong friends with other Bellas, Beca included, despite the idiot’s unabashed talent for breaking every rule Aubrey has ever kept.

Chloe at the championships, looking on wistfully from the wings as Beca and the Treble kiss, murmuring “I wish I could have that happy ending.”

And Aubrey, hating nothing else but that boundary of boundaries, keeping her from doing anything about Chloe’s wishes, and her own.

Until Chloe looks up at her, unravels the years, and reveals: “With you.”

 

  **1st.**

Aubrey wakes to sunlight streaming through the curtains and spilling all over Chloe. The redhead, luminous hair streaming over her pillow and down her bare form, senses her movement and turns. “Hi,” she murmurs, smiling, blue eyes wide and soft and coy. They lock with Aubrey’s, then flick as if by their own volition to the rest of her body, around their unmade bed, back up to her face, her lips.

Involuntarily, too, Aubrey blushes and shifts the sheet farther up her chest, noting that Chloe—of _course_ —only has it just below her waist. The senselessness of her gesture, given what they have both woken up to, only deepens the flush on her cheeks. She loses herself in giggles when Chloe grins at what she has done, then loses her laughter, breath, _and_ the sheet when Chloe moves over for a long, deep kiss.

She returns it, eagerly. A few seconds after they pull apart, she catches an even more furious blush spreading across Chloe’s face.

“Stop staring, Bree. It’s not anything you haven’t seen before,” Chloe tries to quip. But the look in the other girl’s green eyes makes her voice hitch in her throat.

“No,” Aubrey whispers, then leans forward to kiss Chloe again, so she will no longer need to speak or _see_. For she cannot lie, and the truth is she cannot say that she is sorry to be this desirous. No, Chloe naked isn’t anything she hasn’t seen before, and yet, _no_ , she has never seen Chloe naked before, not like _this_.

And _this_ , having _all_ of this? Chloe, here and now, Chloe, last night, Chloe, in every moment of every year in each of their lives together and apart, which led them both to _this_? _This_ is something Aubrey wants to have, again and again, always and forever. She is no longer ashamed about it, and she will no longer be embarrassed to express that. No. Not anymore.

 


End file.
